


That Witch Is Unseen

by Virtuous



Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Scarlet Witch - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Wanda Maximoff - Fandom
Genre: Agamotto - Freeform, Agatha Harkness - Freeform, Asgard, Bifrost, Chaos Magic, Chthon - Freeform, Chthon things, Darkhold, Frigga - Freeform, Frost Giants - Freeform, Gaea - Freeform, Gen, Headcanon, Lore - Freeform, Odin - Freeform, Oshtur - Freeform, Speculative, Wanda Maximoff - Freeform, Wundagore Mountain, elder gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26244304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtuous/pseuds/Virtuous
Summary: Chthon, the ancient Elder God, sees an opportunity when Loki, defeated by his brother Thor, falling from the Bifrost into the unfathomable void, finds himself in the Flickering Realms, Chthon's bizarre, terrifying pocket dimension.Schemes are thus set in motion...
Relationships: Loki Lufaeyson/Chthon, Loki/The Other (Marvel)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	That Witch Is Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place between Thor (2011) and Avengers (2012)
> 
> This Avengers deleted scene is referenced:  
> https://youtu.be/9m3NpkeTOmk
> 
> An interesting point: The Other appears to be able to exert power over the scepter/mind stone. The only other person we have seen do this is Wanda Maximoff.

Some sorcerers call it "The Flickering Realms", others call it "The Dark Heart of Chthon". None who venture into this place leave alive, or sane. The Elder God Chthon controls all reality in this hellscape, a perfect reflection of his chaotic, malevolent soul.

Even the bravest sorcerers who ventured into this chaotic realm perished over the close to 5 billion years that the Elder God had resided in this pocket dimension, which he had constructed when he was forced to escape Earth due to the Demagorge killing and absorbing the Elder Gods. He and his brother Set had attempted to defeat the creation of his their sister, Gaea. Atum, the son born of Gaea, and imbued with the power of the blazing sun. He destroyed the corrupted Elder Gods, one by one, he absorbed their power, his form taking on the hideous countenance of the Demogorge.

Chthon was prepared for all eventualities, for, like his siblings, he could see the corners of possibility, he could view the stretching and sprawling timelines and identify the universes most accomodating to his schemes and plans. Oshtur, his sister, and his mystical counterpart, devised the thought and knowledge focused Order Magic as a counter to his more powerful, emotion-driven Chaos Magic. She also, according to legend, using the ability to see the corners of possibility, witnessed a human child expressing joy despite suffering great pain in the far future, this moved her to shed a tear that would become her son, Agamotto. Chthon sneered at that story. Why even create a son or daughter if you are not going to use him or her to serve your purposes? A waste of effort!

Oh, how he loathed his sisters. Gaea, the being known as "Mother Earth" to humans, and "Jord" to her offspring, the Asgardians. He would soon deal with one of their wretched number, or rather, half a number, in the form of Loki Lufayson. When the would be King of Asgard fell from the Bifrost, it was into Chthon's realm that he fell.

Tumbling off the Bifrost into a void, a cosmic chasm unending, Loki felt time and space contort and expand around him, as he fell...or was it falling? There was no up or down, in truth...and yet he was pulled, not by gravity, but by some hidden, secret force, into a strange, forever shifting, unsettled realm. He landed, quite gently, on a strange surface, a field of white sand contrasting sharply with a pitch black sky, colossal spheres, which he realized were worlds, loomed above, one of them slowly imploding, it's rocky surface shattering in reverse.

Then the white sand turned to red dust, akin to the surface of Mars...and the great sphere above him began to explode...even more slowly. The sky turned a dark blue...then shards of pink, glowing mandelbrots appeared, multuplying then disintegrating.

The sphere froze.

Then they appeared.

The demons.

They surrounded Loki, their red, glowing eyes, their spiked wings, their hundred fanged teeth, their hunched, skeletal figures, their long claws. They varied in appearance; not all were skeletal, some were fat, some had only one eye, some had no eyes, some had cannons fused to their arms, some had rockets fused to their bodies instead of demonic wings.

Loki had heard of these creatures. On two occasions, he had seen them. The N'Garai. Creations of Chthon.

Accosted by Chthon's grotesque, gigantic N'Garai demons, Loki soon found himself cornered...and confronted by a sinister, strange grey skinned man in a blue cloak, that, on closer inspection seemed made from dust rather than fabric. Loki couldn't recall how he was suddenly in front of him, he never saw any approach. This hooded figure simply appeared before him, just because.

Hesitating for a moment, Loki collected his thoughts. Had Chthon intended to kill him, he would have done so by now, though Chthon never passed up an opportunityt to torture and inflict suffering. Loki surmised that the mysterious figure was an avatar of the Elder God.

"I.." Loki's eyes darted around him, constantly assessing his rather perilous situation, "...I will aid you as you see fit, if...if you give me free passage out of here", Loki pleaded. Chthon smiled at him, his red, Chaos Magic filled eyes beaming, gesturing to his demons to back off. They would not be eating raw Asgardian just yet.

Loki felt his very soul being corrupted by the mere presence of the being standing before him.

Chthon. The Great Shadow. Odin had told Loki and Thor stories about "Old Chthon" to scare them as kids. "He moves in the shadows", Odin told them, "he is that which is unseen. Just as well...because, believe me, you do not want to ever see him. He is beyond even the concept of evil as we know it." Back then, Loki and his brother thought Odin was just being dramatic in his storytelling. Now, he understood that Odin was telling the brutal truth.

Chthon smiled. "Hello, little nephew", Chthon said, a sly grin crossing his face, his scarlet eyes burning with the Chaos Magic that was his very essence.  
"Nephew?" Loki asked, confused.  
"To be more precise, half-Nephew, but that is...semantics." Chthon shrugged.  
"My mother, Frigga, has no ties to you, she was raised by witches, and Odin, well, you are not his brother."  
Chthon smirked and stroked his chin, those red eyes glowing and glowering at Loki.  
"Fool. I created witches. All your precious mother did was coddle you...and as for your father..." Chthon stated dismissively, sparking an indignant reaction from Loki that blinded him to the deeper meaning of Chthon's words, and the truth contained within them.

"There is one witch who particularly interests me", Chthon mused, as he looked up into the terrifying sky, filled with imploding planets, dust turning to water, and back again, rocks melting and freezing from moment to moment. The sight was maddening and terrifying to Loki, but to Chthon, it was beautiful, a vison of how the universe should be; chaotic and violent.  
"A witch who doesn't know she is a witch".

"That sounds like some fairy tale. That witch, whomever she is, is of no concern to me. I only care to survive, and to reclaim my rightful throne", Loki declared, trying his damndest to maintain a poker face, and hide the terror beneath. Deception came naturally to him, he was the God of Mischief, after all, yet in the presence of this fearsome entity, one he knew to be one of the most dangerous beings in the universe, his usual effortless confidence was stripped away. Loki was used to adapting like liquid, allowing his thoughts to flow and change according to whatever the situation demanded, but Chthon, the old bastard,the original master of the mystic, was no fool, and the notion of tricking this most devious and utterly amoral of Elder Gods, was a highly risky proposition. Loki had heard the stories Odin had told him of this "Demon Among Demons." Even he shuddered at those tales, even as an adult, they chilled his mind. "Fear Chthon before all others", Odin told him, his voice full of the weight that comes with such soft, yet imposing whispers.

His back still turned to Loki, the hooded figure representing the Great Shadow remarked that "your ambition is little...and born of childish need. I see a vastness of possibility you cannot even begin to comprehend. I look beyond your little world, to the greater worlds".

Looking back to Loki, Chthon grinned. Loki expected Chthon to torture or kill him in that moment, and was hoping for the latter, given Chthon's reputation for sadism and cruelty.

"Primitive though you are, by a curiousity of the multiverse, you Loki's are of use to me, Asgardians." Chthon's words were met with relief by Loki; there was indeed a way out, after all. Or rather more accurately, he hoped there was. But didn't Chthon just refer to him as a collective, rather than an individual? "I am sure you wish to see your mother again", Chthon mused, unsettling Loki, "when I say your mother, I of course mean your mother..."

Chthon let a mischievous smile cross his grey, rock-like lips, as he returned to the subject of parentage.

"...not Thor's."

The Elder God looked at Loki, his scarlet eyes narrowing, as the half Asgardian, half Frost Giant was left looking more than a little confused, and very unnerved. Loki of course knew that Frigga was raised by Witches, she told him of one, Agatha was her name, who was the oldest and wisest of them all, and they were, so it was said, created by Chthon. If Oshtur was the mother of sorcereres, Chthon was the father of witches. Was Frigga the witch that Chthon had taken an interest in?

"Asgardians...you think you are chosen, think yourselves wise? You are as blind to the ways of this universe as the humans of Midgard. Your "knowledge" is a self-deception, as bestowed from Gaea herself." Chthon's voice seethed with a spooling and broiling rage everytime he mentioned his sisters.

"I ask only to return to my realm, Great Chthon", Loki asked, devoting alot of energy to concealing his frustration at not being able to high-tail it out of this demon infested hellhole.

"Oh, you will return, as I see fit, Asgardian. Be grateful I that I have generously marked you for an auspicious destinies". There was that odd phrasing again..."destinies?" Chthon raised his index finger, and a metallic scepter descended from the sky, piercing the ground as it landed before Loki.

Chthon's eyes widened, then narrowed, his alien nature not well hidden by his false humanoid form.

"The Mad Titan, Thanos, is in possession of the Mind Stone, one of the six infinity stones...you will tell him you wield this scepter, and that it can weaponize the mind stone. You will aid him, if you wish to preserve your precarious existence. He will give you no choice."

"Thanos?! The crazy warlord Deviant?!" Loki was baffled as to why Chthon would be interested in a being such as Thanos, a space-faring warlord who had conducted several genocides on worlds such Zeheberi. Thanos was a big deal to the Nova Corp, and of some concern to Asgard, though Odin had yet to move against him, but despite his formidable strength, he seemed small beer to a multiversal demon such as Chthon.

"Maybe...it is your ambitions that are little, Elder God", Loki simply could not resist throwing back some shade, even toward a being who could snuff him out of existence in an instant. It was his nature to dish out those catty, sly remarks, as much second nature to him as breathing is to the rest of us.

Loki was, he could not deny it, intrigued by the mystery of what an absolute monster like Chthon was seeking to do. He knew it was nothing good, because Chthon's intentions were always, without excpetion, evil, even when in the service of acquiring knowledge. He also knew Chthon was a schemer par excellence, with his wheels turning within ever bigger wheels, to some unforseen destiny hidden by the liquid rhythms of chaos.

"My ambition is indeed little, Asgardian, for it concerns the destiny of one particular individual."

"The witch?" Loki muttered to himself.

"What if Thanos kills me?" Loki, who knew of Thanos's ruthless nature, tentatively asked.  
"If?" Chthon asked, his red eyes widening in mockery.  
"I have made you useful to him, and as long as you are, he will at least not kill you."  
Loki gulped. It was clearly implied by Chthon that Thanos would not be above torturing or wounding Loki.

"What if I say no?" Loki mused.  
A towering N'Garai demon, it's cyclopean eye glowing bright red as it loomed behind Loki, inched closer, and pressed both it's massive, clawed hands upon Loki's shoulders. It was Kierok the Damned, the feared enforcer among Chthon's N'Garai hordes. Those claws dug into Loki's shoulders, slowly crushing him. He thought he might be crushed into dust in the next moment.

"Ok...ok...I agree to do as you ask..."

"Good. Remember...if you fail, there will be no crevice, no barren moon, where I cannot find you."

Loki, now gripping the handle of the scepter tightly. was about to speak, only to be teleported away with a simple gesture from Chthon's hand. With that, Chthon's physical form also evaporated; his humanoid form was only for the crude formality of interaction with Loki, for in truth, Chthon had no physical form, he was mystical energy incarnate, his Chaos Magic flowing and suffusing throughout the flickering realms, and longing to find a way back to his home.

That little world.

Earth.

The irony was that from Chthon's perspective, the worst thing Loki could do was actually succeed, for failure was in fact Chthon's intent. Wheels within wheels. Wheels within those wheels. The plans and schemes of the Great Shadow were hidden beneath the mists and sparks of chaos, what seemed like happenstance was in fact planned meticulously by a being expert at weaving the threads of chaos across time and space.

"You wield the scepter, do you not?"


End file.
